Since 1971 Frederick Mulder Ltd has specialised in the prints of Modern masters, focusing on Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch and Henri Matisse. Their clients include major museums such as MoMA and the British Museum, and private collectors. Their expertise is dependable; their director, Anne-Françoise Gavanon has been commissioned by French museums to write catalogue essays for their Picasso exhibitions.

For further details on the artworks offered for sale by Frederick Mulder in the Eye Viewing Room please make an enquiry below.

An impression from the edition of 50, also called the deluxe edition or the large margin edition,

with very nice variegations of blacks.

Inscribed '383' in pencil lower left corner.

Image: 24.9 x 34.6 cm, paper: 50.5 x 38.5 cm

Price: USD 190,000 (plus any applicable taxes)

La Suite Vollard stands as testament to Picasso’s genius and is widely regarded as one of the greatest achievements in print of the 20th century. Made up of one hundred subjects, the suite is named for its publisher Ambroise Vollard and is a survey of Picasso’s preoccupations from 1930 to 1937. It is a precursor to the harrowing imagery of La Guernica and the symbolism of Picasso’s other great etching, La Minotauromachie.

The set most certainly came about as part of an exchange agreed between Picasso and Vollard: a Renoir and a Gauguin for Picasso, in return for 100 etched plates and the rights to publish them. Conceived in 1934, the deal was finally struck in 1936 and Picasso retrospectively chose 97 plates from those he had produced since 1930. He added a further three portraits of Vollard in 1937 to bring the group to 100 prints. The set was printed by the master print-maker Roger Lacourière, with most of the intaglio prints being etchings or drypoints on Montval paper specially watermarked either ‘Vollard’ or ‘Picasso’. Lacourière also taught Picasso ‘sugar-lift’ aquatint which allowed the artist to create richly textured areas such as that to be seen to stunning effect in 'Minotaure aveugle guidé par Marie-Thérèse au Pigeon dans une Nuit etoilée', which Frederick Mulder are delighted to offer here.

In the 1950s, Vallauris, a small town on the Côte d'Azur, where Pablo Picasso lived, asked the artist to design the advertising posters of its annual ceramics exhibitions from 1951 to 1964, the so-called "Exposition de Vallauris" posters", as well as those for its corridas from 1954 to 1960, the so-called "Toros en Vallauris" posters. In 1954 with Toros en Vallauris ("Bulls in Vallauris"), the artist began carving these posters in linoleum, a graphic technique he had only used once previously. All of the Exposition and Toros posters were printed by Hidalgo Arnéra, a young linocut printer living and working in Vallauris - the great majority the linocuts we offer come from the Archives of Imprimerie Arnéra, so an impeccable provenance.

The posters had such a success that they were rapidly recognised as fully-fledged artworks and published in limited editions from 1954. With the Vallauris posters Picasso not only expanded the art of poster-making but also that of linocutting. The artist shifted the Vallauris posters from the domain of advertising to that of limited editions, from craft and the folk arts to the fine arts. The posters still are stunningly contemporary and continue to be sought after by collectors. The thing that makes them remarkable among Picasso's graphic production is their brightly coloured flat areas. They are also easy to read, for they are large, consist of simplified forms and have a limited range of bright colours. They offer a strong and immediate impact.

Provenance:

Archives Imprimerie Arnéra

Condition:

A very fine impression with fresh colours and full margins all around. With a soft crease in the extreme edge of the right margin slightly running into the subject; otherwise in very good condition

Printed from four stones. With the keystone in the second state printed in black and the printed signature, and with the three colour stones B, C and F respectively being printed in grey, yellow, and red. This is Woll's variant X.

The title 'The Sick Child' is given to six paintings and a number of lithographs, drypoints and etchings completed by Edvard Munch over a period of more than 40 years. It is said that each records a moment before the death of his older sister, Sophie from tuberculosis aged 14. Munch also lost his mother to tuberculosis. In the first Sick Child painting 1886-86, Sophie is shown on her deathbed accompanied by a dark-haired, grieving woman assumed to be her aunt, Karen. Alternatively, as in the lithograph shown here, only a powerful close up of Sophie's head can equally be represented.

None of the stones used for the lithographs 'The Sick Child. I' are in existence; they were probably destroyed shortly after they had been used. The only impressions therefore known of this subject are those printed by Clot, and it seems likely that all the impressions were pulled in Paris during 1896 and 1897.

The texture of the black stone in the lithographs may be accounted for by Michael Parke-Taylor's suggestion that Munch may have placed his transfer paper over fabric, as he did with other lithographic plates also prepared in 1896, e.g. 'Attraction' and 'Separation'.

Paul Herrmann's account of the process of printing 'The Sick Child. I' is often quoted: "I wanted Clot to print for me, but I was told: 'Can't be done, Mr Munch has already reserved time.' The stones with the great head were already lying side by side, nicely arranged in a row and ready for printing. And then Munch arrived, stood in front of the stones, peered at them through narrowed eyes, and conducted the process with one finger: 'Print .. Grey, green, blue, brown.' And then he opened his eyes and said to me: 'Come on let's have a drink ..' And the printer went on printing until Munch returned and blindly conducted the procedure in the same way: 'Yellow, pink, red .' And this went on a couple of times more ."

The 'Sick Child' theme became for the artist a means to record both his feelings of despair and guilt that he had been the one to survive and to confront his feelings of loss for his loved ones. All of the paintings and the graphic versions are considered significant to Munch's ouvre, with Munch himself saying he considered them his most important work: "I consider the 'Sick Child' [i.e. the 1885- 86 oil] to be a pioneer work - now my art could assert itself, find its own way. Most of what I have done since is a result of this picture.".